Co-op announces ‘attempted’ cyberattack in wake of M&S incident

The Co-op retail chain in the United Kingdom announced on Wednesday it had proactively shut down part of its IT systems following an attempted cyberattack, which testimony from staff suggested may have been detected at least three days ago.

The incident comes amid ongoing disruption to its competitor Marks & Spencer, which suffered an attack last week that shuttered its online stores. On Monday, the chain told workers not to turn up at its main warehouse distribution centers.

According to a Co-op spokesperson, the firm detected “attempts to gain unauthorised access to some of our systems” and as such had “taken proactive steps to keep our systems safe, which has resulted in a small impact to some of our back office and call centre services.”

Its stores, including home deliveries, are continuing uninterrupted, according to a spokesperson who said the company was “working hard to reduce any disruption to our services and would like to thank our colleagues, members, partners and suppliers for their understanding during this period.”

Staff at two Co-op stores told Recorded Future News that the system they used to clock-in to their shifts was down and had been since the beginning of this week, although they said they hadn’t noticed any other disruption.

The Co-op spokesperson appeared to confirm that the clock-in system disruption was connected to the cyberattack by repeating that they had taken proactive steps to keep their systems safe, but said they were unable to provide additional information.

At the moment there is no evidence that data has been compromised in the attack, however the impact to back-room operations could disrupt efforts to track stock, as reported by The Guardian.

“We are not asking our members or customers to do anything differently at this point. We will continue to provide updates as necessary,” the spokesperson stated.

The Co-op is a consumer co-operative with more than 50,000 employees in over 3,000 locations across the country — including grocery stores, insurance services and funeral parlours — and earlier this month reported making around £161 million in profits before tax over the last financial year, with revenues of around £11.3 billion.